What is the significance of breath in meditation?

Then to the other side...? Not for concentration; I am not doing it even for concentration. The moment you become quiet, the activity, the movement closest to your consciousness is the breath. Then all other movements are far away. Everything is at a distance. The nearest movement is the movement of the breath. But we are so entangled outside that we do not even notice the movement of the breath. As soon as we grow silent, that movement will be noticed.

And even that movement, in itself, is so much that once it is noticed it will itself surround you—not a matter of concentrating; it will itself envelop you. And everything else will seem so far away, so far as if there are miles of distance between you and the horn sounding on the road. That distance will arise because you have gone so far within that from there the road lies very far away. From there, the nearest world of sounds that remains is the breath. And if attention remains there, remains there, then one day even that falls away—suddenly; and that is the jump. That is the last point of which we retain awareness. From there even that rhythm suddenly drops away. Suddenly you will find: you have not gone outward; even the awareness of the breath has departed.

THE VEDAS HAVE SAID THAT BREATH IS BRAHMA. And it is right in a very subtle way. Breath is your life, and breath is also the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, between your body and your soul. This bridge has to be used. If you can use this bridge rightly, you can go to the other shore. I wonder whether you have observed or not that your breath changes with your emotions. When you are angry, you breathe in a different way. Try to observe how you breathe when you are angry and then try to breathe differently while you are angry. You will not be able to be angry. You can be angry only in a certain way, with a certain rhythm of breathing. When you are in love, observe your breath: the rhythm, the music, the harmony. Disturb that harmony and the love will disappear.

Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?

You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…

So should one meditate by simply watching that? Make the breath itself the meditation. The breath goes down, comes up. I say this only to explain. Its going up, its going down—“it went up, it went down”—that becomes a thought. Going and coming is its action; put the whole focus on that action. In a little while you will find you have become thought-free. Because the mind cannot do two things at once. Focus cannot be in two places at the same time.

And that is why it happens that if right now a man comes and stands with a knife at your chest, your thinking stops instantly—because the entire focus goes to the knife. A second later the thought will arise: what should I do to save myself? But for that one second the whole consciousness breaks from the old sequence, because the shock is so great that the fixed pattern shatters at once and you are startled, standing alert. You are driving a car and suddenly a child comes in front; you slam the brakes. For one second the focus will break completely from thought—within focus there will remain only the car and the child. Not even the thought will remain that the child came and might die—no, not even that. That comes later, as an after-effect. Later the thought will arise: the child could have died, this could have happened.…

Chidaditya swaroopam deepah "to be established in the sun of awareness is the only lamp."

That is why a Tantra practitioner, if he is a man, will always worship the partner. The partner is not just a sex object. She is Divine! She is a goddess! And the act is not carnal at all. If you can go into it consciously, it is the deepest spiritual act possible. But the deepest is bound to be virtually impossible. So use either breath or sex. Mahavir has used hunger. That again is a very deep thing. Hunger is not just hunger for your taste or for something else -- it is for your very survival. Mahavir used hunger, fasting, as a method of awareness. It is not an austerity. Mahavir was not an ascetic. People have misunderstood him completely. He was not an ascetic at all. No wise man ever is. But he was using fasting, hunger, as a vehicle for awareness. You might have stumbled upon…